August 9, 2003, Wednesday of the 18th week in ordinary time.

A reading from the Book of Numbers.

The Lord said to Moses, in the desert of Perrin,

Send men to reconnoiter the land of Canaan,

which I am giving the children of Israel.

You shall send one man from each

ancestral tribe, all of them princes. After reconnoitering the land for 40 days they returned,

met Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the children of Israel. In the desert of

Pahran at Kadesh,

made a report to them all,

and showed the fruit of the country to the whole congregation.

They told Moses,

We went into the land to which you sent us.

It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit.

However, the people who are living in the land are fierce,

and the towns are fortified and very strong.

Besides, we saw descendants of the Anakam there.

Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb.

Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites dwell in the highlands,

and Canaanites along the sea coast and the banks of the Jordan.

Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said,

We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so. But the men who had gone up

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